Sylver's Fish Updates

This is a discussion on Sylver's Fish Updates within the Fish Breeding forums, part of the Advanced Freshwater Discussion category; -->
HUZZAH FOR SYLVER PIC AND VID SPAMMMMM!
Sprite is entirely too sweet, so woObie! I love her (or him!). I hope s/he grows well ...

Ah, yes the snails, the BABIES eat an entire slice of cucumber at night. I'm not joking. o_o; Not a whole cucumber, just a whole slice about a quarter inch thick. Which is still shocking because that's the babies, the adult snails don't seem to eat as much! I'm really not kidding! I'd film it, but I don't have any time lapse cameras or enough space for that. =(

As for selling the babies? YES! I was not planning on babies -immediately- but apparently they liked my tanks. Usually even snails wait a while before breeding once purchased and moved around since most critters like to settle in. Snail, guess not. lol My red ramshorn never have babies. In my twenty, which I am still adding plants to bit by bit, though it can't hold much more....I am doing so in hopes if lessening the bioload from them a bit and have split the youngsters up between all five of my tanks. Really wasn't expecting so many kids. The photo of them in the container is just those who decided to stay in there, the rest went into the main tank and you see them all over the glass...Uhhh, I'm actually worried about that, but have yet to have any spikes. I think I may move the platies out for now and let the brats have it. lol

The other problem is, people keep telling me they're illegal here, I keep telling them they're not. I checked the law! Normal ramshorns are legal, the Colombian giant ramshorn is not legal. Oh well, their loss. I'll bring the paper with me to the LFS that buys from me sometimes when I take them some guppies. Pink ramshorns will likely be wanted...I also have some gold leopards. One larger one that was born soon after arrival(I assume the new babies I saw two days after I got them were eggs laid on someones shell...), but I think some other tinies might be. A few look orange or red...do they even come in orange? lol Maybe it's just because they're so small, can't see exact colors yet...but then most I can tell are pink.

Thought I'd do a quick update on Sprite the Betta. I actually already wrote this, but my comp crashed....so it probably wont be as grande now that I'm annoyed. lol

Anywho, Sprite is still a little white wiggler. Still just as active if not more so, and a little more inquisitive than before, though he still is a tad shy when people come to look at him. He doesn't flee or anything, just kinda floats away to hide in the plants.
We're saying "he" because I've not been able to find the "Spot" or their vent that says female, at this age I -should- be able to see it, but alas, he is white still and that makes it difficult. At this point we're also guessing(or hoping I suppose), that he's either a half moon or a delta/butterfly delta because of the fins and dorsal shape. But again, who knows? He still has that blue shadow under the right light, or under very little pre-dawn hour light, but that could just be...well, the light. lol

Sprite got a bit of a food upgrade. He's still tiny, but he has grown maybe a quarter inch or so since I got him, possibly a bit more. He's visibly bigger. He still gets baby brine shrimp for the most part, but I've given him half a glass worm twice now, he looooves those more than anything it seems. Really goes for it. :3 He's not quite big enough for a whole one, but a halfy is downed in about two chomps. He's so cute. x)

I also thought I'd do an update on Jack the betta. Unfortunately it's not a happy one. About two weeks ago when I went to feed him, Jack decided he'd eat a little 1/2-3/4 trumpet snail that was floating up top. This did not go over well. He got bloated up so I passed on feeding him for two days. He did not pass it and continued to get bloated so I attempted to feed him some squishy blanched peas for two days...this didn't work either. =( It pretty much did him in, nothing I did helped. Even tried some Epsom salt. He passed away this morning. I'm kicking myself pretty hard, I just can't bring myself to end even an ailing fish and that'd be an awful way to go. He just continued to bloat until you could see though him. v.v; Ugh, anyways, poor Jack went to the big rainbow pond in the sky this morning. He was such a nice fish, always active and cool. We had that oddity a while back, not sure what it was but he got over it. He had the lovely long veiltail fins and was perfect! I figure he had a few more years in him since he wasn't trashed like most petshop bettas were. Little greedy-gut got him in the end though.

Sorry, ended off the happy cuteness with sad, blah, suck again. ^^; Or did I...?

Oh hey, those of you not keeping up with some of my other random threads: A friend of mine, who I killed(in my dreams) decided to order me an electric blue crayfish. By the time he told me it was already shipped and I couldn't cancel it, so I've been working really hard to make the twenty gallon into his new home(after I smacked he who shall soon be slapped again, he said I was always oogling the colorful crayfish at the shop and just assumed I couldn't afford one, so he got me a "Present" and I explained I didn't get one not only because they're pricy...but because they risk eating my fishies, and because they're not for 80 degree tropical tanks!)...
He'll be a tiny when he gets here, or so I was told(he said it's supposed to be 2 inches or so). 20 gallons is the minimum, and oh how I hate minimums, but it's what I got for now. I've cleaned it up, moved the platies out, turned the heat down over the course of three days(wasn't sure if it'd shock the beneficial bacteria like it does fish, so I went a bit slow, though faster than I would if fish were in there...), and moved a cave in. I'm sure he'll destroy my plants, but eh. ^^; I have a ton more thanks to my period of having growing tanks for a few months there...I now have more plants than my tanks can...well ok, not that much, but I've spread them out to every tank I own and there's not much space on the bottom for much else. :3

Well I'll admit, after my initial fury wore off I did get a bit excited about it. >>; It's so hard not to when some idiot almost but not quite dead guy buys you something you want oh so badly but really shouldn't have. lol I intended to someday, but not any time soon. I was eventually planning to make some cooler water tanks with crayfish and maybe white cloud minnows or something less likely to be eaten, with a 30-40+ gallon tank, not my silly minimum sized twenty. ><

Well, Baby Blue arrived alive and vicious...cutely vicious. lol It was love at first pinch through the bag. lol He's about an inch and a half, maybe two inches, was active soon as I got him out of the very well insulated box. Got him acclimated, and he's done his zoom around the tank and now is in the cave and staying there. He peeks out every so often. :3 Came with hat I THINK is Willow Moss, not positive, may be java or some other moss, and a snail for food he didn't eat. He seems happy with the place and is FULL of attitude(I was pleased to find), as he should be.

Here's Baby Blue. I am pretty sure it's a boy and my little cousin say if it's a boy we should name it Lightning. I'm going to try to talk her into Zeus instead. lol He came out of his cave to say hi, though he is a tad skittish if I come near or move when near. We'll see about changing that blue gravel to black sand eventually.

Awwww! Welcome to the new arrival!
He's a pretty thing - definitely a random addition - you get the oddest gifts! Boring people get things like jewelry, movies, and stuffed animals, Sylver gets betta, frogs, and crayfish!:P
Good luck with him! I hope he thrives!!!

Heh, I've had a lot of interesting things given to me: Trees, mice, turtles, a couple kittens, abandoned baby birds(used to be given baby birds constantly, and as much work as they are to raise, they're lovely and good fun to care for, and letting them go is always a plus. I had a robin I named Early after the beanie baby, brand new baby all pink with eyes closed, that I was given. He would come visit for about eight years after I released him, never let anyone touch him though but he'd come close enough to say hi and would sing for us...Early vanished a few years ago, I assume he passed from old age, but I knew it was him when he came to visit because he had specific markings, a white splot on his black head for one and a tad more white on the belly than most get, he was also huge, and he also seemed to know me, but I was ecstatic to see he made it alright in the wild, as most birds like that do. Seem to have a natural ability, even when human raised, to figure out how to live in the wild, dunno about predator birds, my mom says yes since she raised a couple hawks growing up and they survived fine).
I'm liking this one. It's become my new best friend here. I'm thoroughly pleased with this gift. lol I'm thinking about a small group of fish that like cooler waters to go with him. Maybe the cherry barbs that I've always wanted or some white cloud minnows(or perhaps I'll catch some wild minnows later this year), but I don't know.

Miss clockwork had babies again. I thought she looked a bit laborey last night when I was cleaning the tank, shoulda popped her in my giant planted net! Got up this morning to see little wigglies, two got eated as I tried to catch them, one by a gourami and one by, of all things, Oscar the Pleco. ^^; Little punk. Four escaped me and I can't find them, but I caught two and they're in my smaller planted breeder net. Just chillin out and being cute, they're both the calico types. I'm...well, I WAS confident some would survive ok without my aid since I've got so many new plants and stuff in there, and then Oscar slid into the tangle of java moss and ate an unsuspecting wiggler. =(

Speaking of my calicos, I think I finally got some ok footage of one of my little squirts. Dunno though, haven't seen it uploaded yet...ok, it's not that great, sorry. But you can see one of my pretties. His buddy looks similar-ish, but he's got these little black twinbars on his tail and not as much shiny color as the other one. I hope he keeps the twin-bar look, that's kinda neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyGq...Cni3xwvo6rDzhw

So, I took in ten of my guppies to sell today. Didn't go as planned. I figured they'd want to take a bit off since some of my blue/blondes have nasty nips in the tails, males. x.x But they said that's normal for males and they grow back...what they had a problem with, they said, was they were too skinny and not active enough.

So I brought them home, re-acclimated them and put them in my endlers tank so I could stare and glare and try to see wth he was talking about. Honestly I think he just didn't want to pay me the money for them since they were selling the blue/blondes for $14 each, that would be about seven dollars each for me, and the reds were about the same. o-o; He thought I was bringing him females, so he said, which was bullhonkey since I had just talked to him on the phone twenty minutes before saying "I have some male guppies to sell, do you guys have room for them?" .-.; Don't think I'll be selling there anymore. I mean if they said "Hey, their tails need more damage repair and we can't buy them" I actually woulda said "Hey, I understand, boys are hard when you have that many even in a large tank they still sometimes nip each other. But to tell me they were skinny, not energetic enough, and thought I said female when I clearly didn't and specified they were MALES before he told me they have room kinda miffed me.

Anywho, take a look. I know the videos aren't the best, but do they really look skinny to you guys, and inactive? Am I missing something? I know I haven't had guppies since I was a kid, but they look pretty fit and active to me. The tails need work because the blues are complete buttheads to each other(but oddly leave the other colored males alone), but they're rowdy boys. lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW42...Cni3xwvo6rDzhw